The Death of the Joker
by Shinjite Florana
Summary: BANG-- And the world ended


**AN**: First Batman story, also first JokerXHarley fic, too. Well, first I've ever _posted_. I understand that the situation, the reactions, and characters are a little _out_ of character, but I ask for leniency on my first story. Also, I typed this at 12:30AM running on 4 hours of sleep, so please keep in mind it's not my best work. ^-^' Thanks a ton for reading, anyways. Until later then, my pretties…  
Song listened to while typing: The Last Night, Skillet. Hehehe...it was actually a Joker/Harley Quinn tribute on youtube. Xb

* * *

The Death of The Joker

**BANG**

And the world ended.

.

It had finally been done. Accidentally, of course. Batman wouldn't kill, not even the Joker, for all he threatened. Instead it was no one. A renegade shot from a dieing henchman. A worthless, humorless death.

His face had frozen for a moment, shocked as his hand moved to feel the blood flowing from his heart. Then, of course, he couldn't help it. He started to laugh. A small giggle at first, as he crumpled to the ground. His laughing intensified to its full glory as he lay twitching on the blacktop.

No one moved.

Bruce had fallen into something a bit more then rare to him. Shock. The Joker was dieing. There was no saving him, that was obvious. The reporters were dumb struck as well. So many times the headlines had read JOKER DEAD falsely, but no mistake could be made now. Gotham was in a state of dissolution.

But they couldn't compare. They couldn't even begin to sympathize with _her_.

A noise too loud in the silence struck. A ridiculously huge mallet hit gravel, rolling a few feet away before stopping.

And there stood Harley Quinn.

She wasn't very far from him. They had only spread out enough for her to aide in the fight. Clearly she saw him get shot, watched the blood stream from his wound, hear his maniacal laughter, and watched him tremble now, his laughter turning quieter, into a choking, bubbling noise as blood began to drip from his mouth.

All eyes were on her as she looked on incredulity.

It wasn't real.

It couldn't be.

"…Pudden'…?" her voice was soft and cracked, but in the disturbing quiet of Gotham city, it echoed about the buildings. The life of Gotham was dieing.

She ran to him then, as the last of his life slipped, his, convulsions weakening, his laughter becoming more and more inhuman. After reaching him, she was breathing heavily, although only haven ran several steps. She stood next to his fallen, writhing body a second. "…Mistah J…?" called her weak voice before she fell to her knees next to him.

His laughter was no longer audible as mirth anymore. Then something snapped in Harley. She wouldn't let him die.

Harley didn't know how to help him.

But Harleen had two years of medical school.

Harley's hands became a blur as the moved quickly. Not a second passed and she had unbuttoned his shirt. Ripping the Jester hat from her head she wadded it inside-out and pressed it against the gaping wound in his chest, her golden hair falling in ringlets about her painted face. Not a scrap of frivolity or humor touched her expression as her teeth aided her in ripping both the sleeves from her costume, her actions to fast to truly make out as she tied them together and then around the Joker, making a tourniquet, still in false hope that he would live.

After she was done, she didn't know what to do. Her hands hovered above him as her body shook, helpless.

The Joker's eyes, a moment ago fogged with pain and blindness from all things around him, focused. For a moment not lapsing two or three seconds his eyes rolled to lock with Harley's. With startling force his hand lashed up to hook around the back of her neck, pulling her head down to him as his smiling lips murmured words for only her ears.

And then the end.

His once strong gripping hand fell back to the blacktop, his eyes now glazed.

The Joker's laughter stopped.

Another second passes and tears streak silently down Harley's face in rivers. A female reporter buries her head into a co-worker's shoulder. Bowing his head in an untold motion of hopeless pity, Batman pinched the bridge of his nose, shaking his head in the face of the death of insanity.

"Mistah…J-j? P-pudden…?" The tears don't stop. Her hands reach down to cup his face. "J…J-joker?!" She never calls him that, but she wants him to answer her. Why isn't he answering her?! This isn't funny. She shakes her head, whispering her accusation. "This isn't funny…"

"THIS ISN'T FUNNY!!!" She yells at him. If any thing, this would send him into a rage. Why doesn't he stand up? Why doesn't he hit her? Strangle her? Punish her for her sinful words?

"W-wake up…" She pleads now, her face the picture of grief. "W-WAKE UP!!!"

The crowds stand silent, non responsive to her suffering. He can't take it any more. Bruce walks purposefully toward her, stopping next to her to put a gentle hand on her shoulder.

"Harleen."

"…"

"Harleen." He repeats with a louder but still careful voice.

She responds now, violently shrugging him off and staring at him with rage beyond words in her watery blue eyes,

"Don't _TOUCH_ME!" her tone has changed, now noticeably. She sounds more like Harleen Quinzel then Harley Quinn now, her voice dead serious. She turns back to the Joker, bending her head to touch her forehead to his. His skin feels like ice.

"…Jack…" She chokes out, to quietly for anyone but Batman to hear. One, two nights ago, three? How many days had it been since he remembered that name? Only she knew of it. Only his Harley. "Jack…!" She wails a bit louder.

She shakes him. "_JACK!_"

Her shouts turn to sniffles. "Pudden, wake up…"

But he's not coming back.

The crowd stares in disbelief at his true name. How close had Harley been to the Clown of Crime? What secret tales have held her to him, like a moon orbiting a planet? Her world circling a cackling sun?

Her shaking form shudders harder and harder. Her hand reaches up to clamp over her mouth, her other arm wound tightly around her own chest, as if she was a rag doll coming apart at the seams, trying to hold herself together. Maybe that's all she really is-- was. Jokers favorite toy, but now that the masters gone, has no one to mend her, and keep her together.

No meaning left to be.

With a gasp and a loudness that seems to almost physically penetrate the darkness, Harley's hand falls from her mouth, releasing wave after wave of laughter. Laughter not the same as his; her's is not the same voice nor pitch, nor not even the same message, but it has the same note, the same inhumanity in it, the same pulp that makes your skin prickle and sends shivers like a thousand spiders crawling down your back, like nails on a chalk board in your head, like the shatter of a window as a person jumps…

And tears flow over her face. Her head thrown back, the salt water collecting at the edges of her jaw before overflow of the liquid pours to the ground. The sad, solitary _drip drip drip_ somehow still able to be heard over the roar of her laughing voice.

The strings have snapped, and the puppet falls, never to dance again for another master.

"_You get the best seat in the house for Armageddon. Say goodnight, Harley." -Joker_


End file.
